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Meet Griffin Green, the cancelled ‘Bodega Bro’

Griffin Green

July 4, 2022 - 11:00am

Griffin Green, a former college football player at Denison University in Ohio, had a ‘no good, very bad’ week. His first mistake? Uploading a video to TikTok — a Beijing-based streaming company that has helped popularise things like “femboys” and “sissy hypno” in foreign markets while remaining rigorously censored in its home country. The second mistake concerned the contents of the video itself, in which the midwestern transplant impugned the quality of New York City’s bodegas, noting that they compared less than favourably to chain grocery stores such as Whole Foods and Kroger. He then proceeded to complain about the city’s issues with sanitation and homelessness. 

The video went viral, prompting a response from TikTokers like Dutch de Carvalhoand gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who tweeted: “did anyone else view this as racist?” 

In the wake of the outcry, the software firm Outreach, which had hired Green as an entry-level sales development representative, terminated his contract. The company claimed that this was because Green had violated company policy by posting his offer letter in another video, but it seems clear that online pressure played a significant role too.

So now Griffin Green finds himself alone in the Big Apple, with a cost-prohibitive 12-month lease on his New York apartment. What should he do?

Firstly, the economics major must prepare to pivot, lest he wind up like Justine Sacco, whose life as a corporate communications director imploded in 2013 after she posted a tweet in which she joked about going to Africa and not contracting AIDS because she was white (a statement that, truth be told, is worse than anything Green said in his video). Sacco’s rise up the corporate ladder came to an abrupt halt, and Green — who is at the very beginning of his career — can expect that search results including articles like this one will complicate future efforts to enter the 9-to-5 world. 

Green already made a modest step in the right direction by recording a video of himself buying food from bodegas and giving it to homeless people. Though this might buy him goodwill from “normies”, this is an extremely online story, and those extremely online people who wish to see the so-called “Bodega Bro” laid low will never forgive him. Apologies and good works cannot provide for his future.

No, Green’s brightest prospects are to be found on the Right wing of American media. He hasn’t leaned into his infamy yet, but he has a chance to serve the valuable role of martyr for an unpopular cause. The vehemence of Leftist venom has turned everyone from allegedly “transphobic” reporters Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog to Kenosha, Wisconsin shooter Kyle Rittenhouse into self-financed entrepreneurs. 

The path here is clear: go on Tucker Carlson or Joe Rogan, launch a Substack or Patreon, and perhaps even latch on with a think tank of some sort. Given the cleanness of Green’s rap sheet and the insignificance of his offences, he strikes me as a budding media star with massive upside potential and little downside risk.

Should that be too much for Green, he could continue pursuing his evident interest in health and wellbeing, blending into a Right-wing fitness space led by anonymous or semi-anonymous figures such as the Raw Egg Nationalist and Carnivore Aurelius. Owing to his athletic background, he’s already built better than the young men seen roughhousing in Tucker Carlson’s oddball End of Men documentary. If he incorporates some “egg slonking” and raw organ meat consumption into his social media, he might quickly rival the Liver King for online clout. 

The ideal outcome, of course, would have been for poor Griffin Green to end up keeping his job and learning from his mistake. But this isn’t an ideal world, merely the world we live in, and he has to act accordingly.


Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work

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Christopher Peter
Christopher Peter
1 year ago

As a general rule of thumb, whenever anyone posts something on social media like, “Is this racist, or is it just me?”, the correct answer is, “It’s probably just you”. Because true racism is usually pretty obvious, and only the habitual offence-takers, those apparently perpetually on the lookout for the slightest transgressions, always ready to point the finger and join an online pile-on, are likely to ask such a question. Honestly, have they nothing else better to do?

Rocky Rhode
Rocky Rhode
1 year ago

It seems a particular thing on the Left for wealthy, established individuals like Perez Hilton to try to ruin the lives of complete unknowns for the tiniest of imagined offences.
There is something psychopathic about this behaviour.

Judy Englander
Judy Englander
1 year ago
Reply to  Rocky Rhode

It’s the high some (many?) people enjoy with the exercise of power.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

Upvoted, although I would go a little further and say “it’s probably just you being racist.”

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

for the n th time.. DEFINE racism?. please, someone?!!!

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago

Why? You clearly can’t be bothered looking for a definition yourself.

Mo Brown
Mo Brown
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

There is no definition. That’s the point. It’s a word used mainly as a weapon. It has a use, but no definition. If it had a definition, it would not be as useful.

Dennis Boylon
Dennis Boylon
1 year ago

Move to red state America. This is what you get for moving to a hell hole like NYC. Even black people prefer living in the South! Leftists are insufferable filthy lunatics

Gunner Myrtle
Gunner Myrtle
1 year ago

I thought New Yorkers were supposed to be tough and sharp tongued. I guess dissing their bodegas was taking things too far.

Ormond Otvos
Ormond Otvos
1 year ago

Anti-social media kills another life to support its habit.
Perez Hilton and her like are savages dancing around the Golden Calf of addictive notoriety.

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago

Why would any white male have a public presence on social media in 2022 and risk opening themselves up to this sort of visciousness? I’m not being facetious. I genuinely don’t understand it. Does narcissism really trump the knowledge that someone out there who spends 14 hours a day on Twitter and Discord wants to destroy your life?

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  R Wright

Any white young person, male or female is best advised to stay off social media.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago

The only Americans who don’t complain about homelessness are the Democrats running the big cities where homelessness is a problem and their acolytes.

Donald Iarussi MFA
Donald Iarussi MFA
1 year ago

I am from the South Bronx or mid Bronx and grew up there and bodegas and not only on by Hispanics by my white people Jewish people etc Bodega is just a nickname for them. So how this was racist and beyond me. By the way the Bronx is very racist very dangerous and these bodegas for the most part it truly disgusting. Maybe they should be more concerned about crime and corruption and poverty pimping and people being forced to live in horrible housing that is run by democrats in the city of New york. There were people put up with rats other rodents which is and other diseases lead paint and of course gang members trying to break down you to work and rape your daughter and trying to put your kids on drugs. Paris Hilton go live who weak in the South Bronx you p****

Adam Hilton
Adam Hilton
1 year ago

This is against this man’s First Amendment right, according to the constitution.
Seems like he’s disturbed by how gruesome some of our cities are and this man is actually doing something about it.

Leisy S
Leisy S
1 year ago

This young guy is just surprised about the corner stores of a particular part within New York city called ‘bodegas’. It could happen to anyone! That’s not racist AT ALL. Hello. Why are you so quick to play the race card?? Only you are the real bigot! Don’t feel inferior, please! STFU.

Mo Brown
Mo Brown
1 year ago
Reply to  Leisy S

Being surprised about corner stores is obviously racist though, somehow.

Mo Brown
Mo Brown
1 year ago

Yes, he could join the “Right wing” of media. He could go on “Joe Rogan, launch a Substack” or perhaps even join the last refuge of the extreme Right, Unherd.